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Tennis

Anderson floors Andy

South African makes his first Grand Slam q-final and ends Murray's streak

Andy Murray fell out of the US Open under a barrage of aces and service winners off the racquet of towering South African Kevin Anderson in a match that ended two Grand Slam streaks.

Anderson reached his first Grand-Slam quarter-final with a 7-6 (5), 6-3, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (0) victory at Louis Armstrong Stadium after a string of seven losses in fourth round matches at the Majors.

"It was the match of my life," Anderson said. "This is a great accomplishment for me."

Anderson, who won his third career title two weeks ago at Winston-Salem, is the first South African in New York's last-eight since Wayne Ferreira in 1992.

EXCITED

"I'm just so excited to be through," said Anderson. "Beating a guy like Andy, I really feel like I've taken a step forward. It's amazing. I feel like it's a great accomplishment."

Anderson, 1-5 in prior matches against Murray, fired 25 aces in ending an 0-15 career hoodoo against top-10 opponents to book a last-eight date with Swiss fifth seed Stan Wawrinka.

Murray's loss snapped the Briton's run of having reached 18 consecutive Grand Slam quarter-finals.

"That's obviously something that is disappointing to lose," said the third-seeded Scot, who smashed his racquet in frustration after losing the second set.

"That's many years' work that's gone into building that sort of consistency.

"Also to lose a match like that, that was over four hours, tough obviously after a couple of tough matches earlier in the tournament, as well. It's a hard one to lose, for sure."

The defeat came at Louis Armstrong Stadium, the US National Tennis Center's second court.

"That court is a lot quicker than Ashe (Arthur Ashe Stadium). I felt like I was on the back foot quite a lot. Wasn't able to play that offensively," said Murray.

"But when you're playing against someone that has the game style that he does, you're always going to have to do a fair bit of defending, especially if he serves well."

Murray lamented some lost chances against the 2.03m tall South African, seeded 15th.

"When you're playing against players that are at that level, you need to make them think and then give them a chance to get nervous," he said, about how the match might have gone differently had he cashed in on a couple of break points.

"I felt like I had my opportunities there but didn't manage to capitalise on them." - Reuters.

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